Category: Labor law and working conditions
Equality plan: can the employer implement a plan unilaterally if the union refuses to negotiate?
A recent judgment clears the way for employers to carry out the equality plan process without needing to negotiate it with the workers’ representatives where no response has been received from the union in the specified period. Since January 13, 2021, employers have been required to fully comply with the new equality obligations, following the […]
Is a worker who has taken voluntary leave of absence entitled to extend its term when it comes to an end?
There are number of points which an employee must decide upon when requesting a voluntary leave of absence; the duration of such arrangement is one of them. Once a leave of absence of a fixed term has been requested, is the company under the obligation to agree to its extension at the employee’s request? We […]
Four-day workweek: a myth or reality?
Recently we have been seeing more and more countries launch initiatives to test the possibility of implementing a four-day week. We will take a look at Spain and Portugal and other projects underway in Europe. The implementation of a four-day week is progressively being discussed in numerous countries. Indeed, headlines regarding the approval of laws […]
Labor relations as an essential instrument to achieve equality between men and women
In recent months, a number of regulations have introduced new developments in the area of equality in the workplace in Spain. From the obligation to adopt measures to guarantee equal working conditions to the acknowledgement of sick leave for pregnant women from the first day of the 39th week of pregnancy. We take a look […]
Can artificial intelligence, under human supervision, dismiss me?
The proposal for a European Directive on improving working conditions in platform work requires that, in intensely digitalized environments, there is always human control. This means that the decision regarding a job cannot be left exclusively in the hands of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk, together with other collaborators, created in 2015 a language model called […]
Should prescription glasses be provided by a company to its employees?
According to a recent judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union, companies should only be liable for the cost of prescription glasses when, as a special corrective device, they serve to correct or prevent vision disorders that are specifically related to the job and not problems of vision or pathologies of a […]